Since June 2011 when the first carnival was launched, South African homeschooling bloggers have had the opportunity to join a uniquely South African Homeschooling Blogging community in the form of a Blog Carnival. You can also join by filling in this form.
What is a blog carnival?
Simply, it is a selection of fantastic blog posts around a similar subject all hosted on one person’s blog. Other SA homeschooling bloggers send the host blogger a link to one of their own blog posts that is relevant to the topic. The host blogger then compiles a blog post that acts like a virtual magazine where each link leads the reader to another fantastic article, tidbit, photo spread or feature centred around a common theme and subject. In our case, the subject is home schooling and the themes differ from Carnival to Carnival. Below is a list of our 2011 carnivals. All linked carnivals are past and published. All carnival themes in red are currently unhosted – please email me if you’re interested in hosting that slot.
| Friday 24 July | our experiences, ideas and philosophies |
| Friday 8 July | outings |
| Friday 22 July | Afrikaans and/or other languages |
| Friday 5 August | nature outdoors |
| Friday 19 August | sciences and natural sciences |
| Friday 2 September | geography |
| Friday 16 September | craft ideas/experiences |
| Friday 30 September | co-op/ support groups |
| Friday 14 October | our journey into home schooling |
| Friday 28 October | maths focus |
| Friday 11 November | philosophies of home schooling |
| Friday 25 November | English language arts programme focus |
| Friday 8 December | Christmas celebrations/crafts/ideas |
| Friday 22 December | holiday fun |
Why is this exciting?
South African homeschoolers are growing rapidly, as are those who blog about their home schooling experiences. There are a wealth of fantastic ideas worth sharing. A blog carnival that is uniquely South African allows readers to glean a lot of great tips, ideas, advice and information all in one place. This not only saves research time, but it also introduces us to each other. Since many of us still feel a little isolated in the experience of home schooling in South Africa, a blog carnival like this allows you to feel a part of the bigger South African homeschooling community. While you may not have home schooling friends in your neighbourhood, you will know that other South African homeschoolers, who identify with where you are at, are simply a mouse-click away.
How do I join?
If you are keen to be a part of this blog carnival community then please fill in the form at the end of this page. You will be added to the SACH blog mailing list. From there you will get emails updating you on the next blog carnival coming up and who you can send your blog link to in order to feature in that carnival. You can send a link to a new, old or even really old post – it’s all new to our readers, so as long as the post is relevant to the topic, it’s all good!
What else can I do in the meantime?
If you would like to share the excitement around the SACH BLOG idea, then consider popping a SACH BLOG button on your own blog. Not sure how to do it? Simply copy and paste this code to your blog post or your sidebar. (For a sidebar, select “widgets/gadgets” and then select the “text/HTML” widget/gadget. Paste the code in and voila! there it is!)
You are also welcome to peruse our web page for more on home schooling in South Africa. Check out the page Homeschooling in South Africa or any of the other posts in the @Homeschool category (see the menu bar on this website).
1. Hayes Happenings: http://www.hayesfamily.co.za/blog
2. Yet another home schooling mommy blog of eclectic subject matter, including much on home schooling, family life, Jesus, product reviews and ponderings too.
3. We are a family of 6: Dad, Mom, 2 girls, 2 boys (by October they’ll be 9, 7, 5, 3 respectively). We chose the home school road when our eldest was just an itty bitty kiddy – lots of push and pull factors which we’ve outlined on our blog. The biggest drawcard, however, was that we thoroughly loved the freedoms home schooling allows – freedom to choose curriculum/learning style, freedom to choose holidays,
freedom to work around illness, daddy’s work, relevant events etc.
1. The Journey: http://www.frog.za.net/thejourney
2. A growing Christian Homeschooling Mommy blogger who probably shares more than I should.
3. We are a family of 5, Dad, Mom, Boy 5, Girl -almost 2 and Little Boy 4months
1. http://www.thandislocsnlife.blogspot
2. My blog is an eclectic mix of this and that. Homeschooling, keeping our ‘African’ hair natural, my Christianity, South Africa..anything and EVERYTHING!
3. We’re a famoly of 4. Husband is a systems analyst and consultant, I’m a part-time Honours student in Psychology and my children are 6yrs old (20 June, boy) and 4 yrs old (Girl, turning 5 on July 27)
1. The Chronicles of Karen’s Clan over at http://karensclan.blogspot.com/ 2. (Brief?!) Ahem, well, in a nutshell two of my passions are education and parenting, and my blog reflects this. I hope it inspires, challenges and helps on their own journey! 3. We’re really following a different drumbeat and loving it! I’m a Geography and English high school teacher who just loves teenagers, but really felt led by God to research and understand the homeschool movement. In doing so, we felt convicted that it was the right path for our eldest, almost 7. My other two, 5 and 3, still attend nursery/preschool just a couple of days a week, and we love being led by God for each child each year. I am finding my feet homeschooling this year, and loving every opportunity I have with my eldest. I look forward to what God has in store for us in the years to come…
The website and blog of the Association for Homeschooling. Since its inception in 1992, the Association for Homeschooling has promoted the recognition of the right of parents to educate their children within the family in South Africa, as it is recognised in art. 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Right which states: “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.” Since 2010, the Association also promotes these parental rights in the larger Southern Africa region.
1) Loving learning http://mzshome.blogspot.com/
2) our lives and learning together, set up primarily to keep my far away family in the loop
3)We are a family of 5 with 3 kids age 15, 13 and 10 who have always been schooled at home.we love learning together.we have used a mix of Konos, Footprints and other bits and pieces over the years. Eldest son is now doing Cambridge
Hi from Nadene at Practical Pages!
I love to share our notebooking and lapbook pages, along with Charlotte Mason inspired homeschooling tips and advice, stacks of other free pages, projects, art lessons and ideas … a wonderful collection of free pages, counsel and sharing.
I suppose that living up on an extremely remote mountain farm in the Klein Karoo, Practical Pages is the only way I can reach out and share with others! Oh, how wonderful to be able to meet with other homeschoolers!
Despite 10 years of teaching experience and 12 years old homeschooling, I am still learning and growing and i am so grateful to the Lord for this incredible journey!
We are homeschooling 2 boys aged 8 & 14 currently in grades 3 & 8. We are still new to homeschooling and have created our blog for sharing our experiences as well as usefull links and information.
1. Hi, we’re “so homeschooled!” at http://sohomeschooled.blogspot.com/
2. The blog is my attempt to document our journey, answer some questions, ask some more and generally just share the daily ins and outs of our homeschooling experience.
It’s also the answer to all the “So…?” questions we get…you know the ones, “So how will they make friends?” etc
3. We’re currently a family of 4, Mom & Dad, a 3 and 1/2 year old boy and a 16 month old little girl. I have a little crafty home business and Dad is a Developer.
http://www.backtoancientways.blogspot.com/
We are currently a family of 10, Daddy, Mommy, 6 boys (16yrs, 10yrs, 6yrs, 4yrs, 2yrs and 17 months) and 2 girls (14yrs and 8yrs). We are a Learning Lifestyle Homeschooling Family and love sharing every day life with our children.
Back to Ancient Ways is my place in space where I write about God’s revelations to me and share my passions – Being a Godly Wife, A Homeschooling Mother, A Daughter of the King, A Bearer of Life and A Keeper of my Home!
1. Steenkamp Family Blog http://steenkamp.wordpress.com
2. My blog is more like a diary of our lives, which includes homeschooling, outings, travel and the normal ups and downs of a big busy family.
3. I am mom to Christian (8), Aaron (6), Zara (5) and Mia (3) and wife to a wonderfully talented and loving husband, Stefan. We have just started our 4th year of homeschooling with Sonlight. My blog is my outlet and often helps me organize my thoughts, vent frustrations or brag about cool things we have done.
I love this carnival idea to meet other homeschoolers. My blog is a general inspirational blog about things that God has shown me, personal experiences or homeschool experiences as well as an outlet for my burning passion for writing.
We are a family of five with two boys and one girl. At the moment, we are working through Footprints on our Land but will be finished it at the end of the year. We’re basically ecletic in our curriculum use as we’re using a varied combination of different curriculums and it’s ever changing and evolving.
Homeschooling is wonderful and immensely challenging at the same time. I wouldn’t trade those moments I’ve had with my kids (although many wrought with conflict, angry words and then regret) for harried days spent in an office making money that in the end just gets spent maintaining the hectic lifestyle.
thanks for contributing Kathleen – it certainly is a wonderful journey! Difficult, but great!
what about South Africans living in other countries that are homeschooling ? May we join ?
absolutely Chareen! Feel free to join in!
Hi Taryn, I’ve tried and tried and tried, but just can’t get the blog button up on my blog. Tried a text box and an HTML/JAVA box but neither work-any one else had problems? Any more tips? Sorry, I told you I’m NOT a technical girl
Nikki – I think I’ve solved the problem. Basically, my blog editor was converting the code into other code which then rendered the whole thing broken! I think it’s working now. Use the HTML gadget of blogspot. If all else fails, rather cut and paste from the code provided in the sidebar of my blog
HTH!
Ta da! It worked! Thanks
p.s the one within your post worked-but the one in your side bar didn’t.
really? ah! more tweaking it seems! I think that different blog platforms translate code slightly differently. Which makes the cut&paste option a little tricky. Sometimes it’s best to manually type in the code into your post.
Glad it worked tho!
What a fantastic idea Rachael – I will be sure to pass it on to other bloggers I know. Hopefully I’ll find the time to enter this year too!
Fantastic idea Rachael – I will let others know about it and hopefully will find the time to enter myself!
Hi Taryn…. great to ‘meet’ you. Haven’t posted an entry for a while, but feel inspired after reading your blog.
Glad to hear it and to ‘meet’ you too!